muttrc man page

A mutt configuration file consists of a series of “commands”. Each line of the file may contain one or more commands. When multiple commands are used, they must be separated by a semicolon (“;”).

The hash mark, or pound sign (“#”), is used as a “comment” character. You can use it to annotate your initialization file. All text after the comment character to the end of the line is ignored.

Single quotes (“'”) and double quotes (“"”) can be used to quote strings which contain spaces or other special characters. The difference between the two types of quotes is similar to that of many popular shell programs, namely that a single quote is used to specify a literal string (one that is not interpreted for shell variables or quoting with a backslash [see next paragraph]), while double quotes indicate a string which should be evaluated. For example, backticks are evaluated inside of double quotes, but not single quotes.

\ quotes the next character, just as in shells such as bash and zsh. For example, if want to put quotes (“"”) inside of a string, you can use “\” to force the next character to be a literal instead of interpreted character.

“\\” means to insert a literal “\” into the line. “\n” and “\r” have their usual C meanings of linefeed and carriage-return, respectively.

A “\” at the end of a line can be used to split commands over multiple lines, provided that the split points don't appear in the middle of command names.

It is also possible to substitute the output of a Unix command in an initialization file. This is accomplished by enclosing the command in backticks (`command`).

UNIX environment variables can be accessed like the way it is done in shells like sh and bash: Prepend the name of the variable by a dollar (“$”) sign.

alias defines an alias key for the given addresses. Each address will be resolved into either an email address (user@example.com) or a named email address (User Name <user@example.com>). The address may be specified in either format, or in the format “user@example.com (User Name)”. unalias removes the alias corresponding to the given key or all aliases when “*” is used as an argument. The optional -group argument to alias causes the aliased address(es) to be added to the named group.

group is used to directly add either addresses or regular expressions to the specified group or groups. The different categories of arguments to the group command can be in any order. The flags -rx and -addr specify what the following strings (that cannot begin with a hyphen) should be interpreted as: either a regular expression or an email address, respectively. ungroup is used to remove addresses or regular expressions from the specified group or groups. The syntax is similar to the group command, however the special character * can be used to empty a group of all of its contents.

These address groups can also be created implicitly by the alias, lists, subscribe and alternates commands by specifying the optional -group option.

Once defined, these address groups can be used in patterns to search for and limit the display to messages matching a group.

alternates is used to inform mutt about alternate addresses where you receive mail; you can use regular expressions to specify alternate addresses. This affects mutt's idea about messages from you, and messages addressed to you. unalternates removes a regular expression from the list of known alternates. The -group flag causes all of the subsequent regular expressions to be added to the named group.

alternative_order command permits you to define an order of preference which is used by mutt to determine which part of a multipart/alternative body to display. A subtype of “*” matches any subtype, as does an empty subtype. unalternative_order removes entries from the ordered list or deletes the entire list when “*” is used as an argument.

auto_viewtype[/subtype] [ ... ]
unauto_viewtype[/subtype] [ ... ]

This commands permits you to specify that mutt should automatically convert the given MIME types to text/plain when displaying messages. For this to work, there must be a mailcap(5) entry for the given MIME type with the copiousoutput flag set. A subtype of “*” matches any subtype, as does an empty subtype.

mime_lookuptype[/subtype] [ ... ]
unmime_lookuptype[/subtype] [ ... ]

This command permits you to define a list of "data" MIME content types for which mutt will try to determine the actual file type from the file name, and not use a mailcap(5) entry given for the original MIME type. For instance, you may add the application/octet-stream MIME type to this list.

This command defines a system-specific name for a character set. This is useful when your system's iconv(3) implementation does not understand MIME character set names (such as iso-8859-1), but instead insists on being fed with implementation-specific character set names (such as 8859-1). In this specific case, you'd put this into your configuration file:

Before mutt displays (or formats for replying or forwarding) a message which matches the given pattern (or, when it is preceded by an exclamation mark, does not match the pattern), the given command is executed. When multiple message-hooks match, they are executed in the order in which they occur in the configuration file.

Mutt maintains two lists of mailing list address patterns, a list of subscribed mailing lists, and a list of known mailing lists. All subscribed mailing lists are known. Patterns use regular expressions.

The lists command adds a mailing list address to the list of known mailing lists. The unlists command removes a mailing list from the lists of known and subscribed mailing lists. The subscribe command adds a mailing list to the lists of known and subscribed mailing lists. The unsubscribe command removes it from the list of subscribed mailing lists. The -group flag adds all of the subsequent regular expressions to the named group.

When mutt changes to a mail folder which matches regexp, mailbox will be used as the “mbox” folder, i.e., read messages will be moved to that folder when the mail folder is left.

The first matching mbox-hook applies.

mailboxesfilename [ filename ... ]
unmailboxes [ * | filename ... ]

The mailboxes specifies folders which can receive mail and which will be checked for new messages. When changing folders, pressing space will cycle through folders with new mail. The unmailboxes command is used to remove a file name from the list of folders which can receive mail. If "*" is specified as the file name, the list is emptied.

my_hdrstringunmy_hdrfield

Using my_hdr, you can define headers which will be added to the messages you compose. unmy_hdr will remove the given user-defined headers.

Whenever a message matching pattern is changed (either by editing it or by using the compose menu), command is executed. When multiple send2-hooks match, they are executed in the order in which they occur in the configuration file. Possible applications include setting the $sendmail variable when a message's from header is changed.

send2-hook execution is not triggered by use of enter-command from the compose menu.

When replying to a message matching pattern, command is executed. When multiple reply-hooks match, they are executed in the order in which they occur in the configuration file, but all reply-hooks are matched and executed before send-hooks, regardless of their order in the configuration file.

The crypt-hook command provides a method by which you can specify the ID of the public key to be used when encrypting messages to a certain recipient. The meaning of "key ID" is to be taken broadly: This can be a different e-mail address, a numerical key ID, or even just an arbitrary search string. You may use multiple crypt-hooks with the same regexp; multiple matching crypt-hooks result in the use of multiple key-ids for a recipient.

This command is used to inject format strings dynamically into $index_format based on pattern matching against the current message.

The $index_format expando %@name@ specifies a placeholder for the injection. Index-format-hooks with the same name are matched using pattern against the current message. Matching is done in the order specified in the .muttrc, with the first match being used. The hook's format-string is then substituted and evaluated.

These commands provide a way to handle compressed folders. The given regexp specifies which folders are taken as compressed (e.g. "\\.gz$"). The commands tell Mutt how to uncompress a folder (open-hook), compress a folder (close-hook) or append a compressed mail to a compressed folder (append-hook). The command string is the printf(3) like format string, and it should accept two parameters: %f, which is replaced with the (compressed) folder name, and %t which is replaced with the name of the temporary folder to which to write.

These commands are used to set and manipulate configuration variables.

Mutt knows four basic types of variables: boolean, number, string and quadoption. Boolean variables can be set (true), unset (false), or toggled. Number variables can be assigned a positive integer value.

String variables consist of any number of printable characters. Strings must be enclosed in quotes if they contain spaces or tabs. You may also use the “C” escape sequences \n and \t for newline and tab, respectively.

Quadoption variables are used to control whether or not to be prompted for certain actions, or to specify a default action. A value of yes will cause the action to be carried out automatically as if you had answered yes to the question. Similarly, a value of no will cause the the action to be carried out as if you had answered “no.” A value of ask-yes will cause a prompt with a default answer of “yes” and ask-no will provide a default answer of “no.”

The reset command resets all given variables to the compile time defaults. If you reset the special variable all, all variables will reset to their compile time defaults.

These commands define spam-detection patterns from external spam filters, so that mutt can sort, limit, and search on “spam tags” or “spam attributes”, or display them in the index. See the Mutt manual for details.

subjectrxpattern replacementunsubjectrx [ * | pattern ]

subjectrx specifies a regular expression pattern which, if detected in a message subject, causes the subject to be replaced with the replacement value. The replacement is subject to substitutions in the same way as for the spam command: %L for the text to the left of the match, %R for text to the right of the match, and %1 for the first subgroup in the match (etc). If you simply want to erase the match, set it to “%L%R”. Any number of subjectrx commands may coexist.

Note this well: the replacement value replaces the entire subject, not just the match!

unsubjectrx removes a given subjectrx from the substitution list. If * is used as the pattern, all substitutions will be removed.

These commands allow the user to modify the list of allowed header fields in a mailto: URL that Mutt will include in the the generated message. By default the list contains only subject and body, as specified by RFC2368.

A simple pattern consists of an operator of the form “~character”, possibly followed by a parameter against which mutt is supposed to match the object specified by this operator. For some characters, the ~ may be replaced by another character to alter the behavior of the match. These are described in the list of operators, below.

With some of these operators, the object to be matched consists of several e-mail addresses. In these cases, the object is matched if at least one of these e-mail addresses matches. You can prepend a hat (“^”) character to such a pattern to indicate that all addresses must match in order to match the object.

You can construct complex patterns by combining simple patterns with logical operators. Logical AND is specified by simply concatenating two simple patterns, for instance “~C mutt-dev ~s bug”. Logical OR is specified by inserting a vertical bar (“|”) between two patterns, for instance “~C mutt-dev | ~s bug”. Additionally, you can negate a pattern by prepending a bang (“!”) character. For logical grouping, use braces (“()”). Example: “!(~t mutt|~c mutt) ~f elkins”.

The ~d and ~r operators are used to match date ranges, which are interpreted to be given in your local time zone.

A date is of the form DD[/MM[/[cc]YY]], that is, a two-digit date, optionally followed by a two-digit month, optionally followed by a year specifications. Omitted fields default to the current month and year.

Mutt understands either two or four digit year specifications. When given a two-digit year, mutt will interpret values less than 70 as lying in the 21st century (i.e., “38” means 2038 and not 1938, and “00” is interpreted as 2000), and values greater than or equal to 70 as lying in the 20th century.

Note that this behavior is Y2K compliant, but that mutt does have a Y2.07K problem.

If a date range consists of a single date, the operator in question will match that precise date. If the date range consists of a dash (“-”), followed by a date, this range will match any date before and up to the date given. Similarly, a date followed by a dash matches the date given and any later point of time. Two dates, separated by a dash, match any date which lies in the given range of time.

You can also modify any absolute date by giving an error range. An error range consists of one of the characters +, -, *, followed by a positive number, followed by one of the unit characters y, m, w, or d, specifying a unit of years, months, weeks, or days. + increases the maximum date matched by the given interval of time, - decreases the minimum date matched by the given interval of time, and * increases the maximum date and decreases the minimum date matched by the given interval of time. It is possible to give multiple error margins, which cumulate. Example: 1/1/2001-1w+2w*3d

You can also specify offsets relative to the current date. An offset is specified as one of the characters <, >, =, followed by a positive number, followed by one of the unit characters y, m, w, d, H, M, or S. > matches dates which are older than the specified amount of time, an offset which begins with the character < matches dates which are more recent than the specified amount of time, and an offset which begins with the character = matches points of time which are precisely the given amount of time ago.

Specifies a regular expression to match against the body of the message, to determine if an attachment was mentioned but mistakenly forgotten. If it matches, $abort_noattach will be consulted to determine if message sending will be aborted.

Like other regular expressions in Mutt, the search is case sensitive if the pattern contains at least one upper case letter, and case insensitive otherwise.

If set to yes, when composing messages and no subject is given at the subject prompt, composition will be aborted. If set to no, composing messages with no subject given at the subject prompt will never be aborted.

If set to yes, composition will automatically abort after editing the message body if no changes are made to the file (this check only happens after the first edit of the file). When set to no, composition will never be aborted.

The default file in which to save aliases created by the <create-alias> function. Entries added to this file are encoded in the character set specified by $config_charset if it is set or the current character set otherwise.

Note: Mutt will not automatically source this file; you must explicitly use the “source” command for it to be executed in case this option points to a dedicated alias file.

The default for this option is the currently used muttrc file, or “~/.muttrc” if no user muttrc was found.

Controls whether ANSI color codes in messages (and color tags in rich text messages) are to be interpreted. Messages containing these codes are rare, but if this option is set, their text will be colored accordingly. Note that this may override your color choices, and even present a security problem, since a message could include a line like

[-- PGP output follows ...

and give it the same color as your attachment color (see also $crypt_timestamp).

When set, an arrow (“->”) will be used to indicate the current entry in menus instead of highlighting the whole line. On slow network or modem links this will make response faster because there is less that has to be redrawn on the screen when moving to the next or previous entries in the menu.

This variable is a colon-separated list of character encoding schemes for messages without character encoding indication. Header field values and message body content without character encoding indication would be assumed that they are written in one of this list. By default, all the header fields and message body without any charset indication are assumed to be in “us-ascii”.

This variable is a colon-separated list of character encoding schemes for text file attachments. Mutt uses this setting to guess which encoding files being attached are encoded in to convert them to a proper character set given in $send_charset.

If unset, the value of $charset will be used instead. For example, the following configuration would work for Japanese text handling:

set attach_charset=”iso-2022-jp:euc-jp:shift_jis:utf-8”

Note: for Japanese users, “iso-2022-*” must be put at the head of the value as shown above if included.

If this variable is unset, when operating (saving, printing, piping, etc) on a list of tagged attachments, Mutt will concatenate the attachments and will operate on them as a single attachment. The $attach_sep separator is added after each attachment. When set, Mutt will operate on the attachments one by one.

The locale used by strftime(3) to format dates in the attribution string. Legal values are the strings your system accepts for the locale environment variable $LC_TIME.

This variable is to allow the attribution date format to be customized by recipient or folder using hooks. By default, Mutt will use your locale environment, so there is no need to set this except to override that default.

When set, functions in the index menu which affect a message will be applied to all tagged messages (if there are any). When unset, you must first use the <tag-prefix> function (bound to “;” by default) to make the next function apply to all tagged messages.

When set along with $edit_headers, Mutt will skip the initial send-menu (prompting for subject and recipients) and allow you to immediately begin editing the body of your message. The send-menu may still be accessed once you have finished editing the body of your message.

Note: when this option is set, you cannot use send-hooks that depend on the recipients when composing a new (non-reply) message, as the initial list of recipients is empty.

Controls whether you will be asked to confirm bouncing messages. If set to yes you don't get asked if you want to bounce a message. Setting this variable to no is not generally useful, and thus not recommended, because you are unable to bounce messages.

When this variable is set, mutt will place the cursor at the beginning of the current line in menus, even when the $arrow_cursor variable is unset, making it easier for blind persons using Braille displays to follow these menus. The option is unset by default because many visual terminals don't permit making the cursor invisible.

When this variable is set, mutt will abbreviate mailbox names in the browser mailbox list, using '~' and '=' shortcuts.

The default ”alpha” setting of $sort_browser uses locale-based sorting (using strcoll(3)), which ignores some punctuation. This can lead to some situations where the order doesn't make intuitive sense. In those cases, it may be desirable to unset this variable.

This variable specifies the file where the certificates you trust are saved. When an unknown certificate is encountered, you are asked if you accept it or not. If you accept it, the certificate can also be saved in this file and further connections are automatically accepted.

You can also manually add CA certificates in this file. Any server certificate that is signed with one of these CA certificates is also automatically accepted.

When this variable is set, mutt will use file size attribute instead of access time when checking for new mail in mbox and mmdf folders.

This variable is unset by default and should only be enabled when new mail detection for these folder types is unreliable or doesn't work.

Note that enabling this variable should happen before any “mailboxes” directives occur in configuration files regarding mbox or mmdf folders because mutt needs to determine the initial new mail status of such a mailbox by performing a fast mailbox scan when it is defined. Afterwards the new mail status is tracked by file size changes.

When set, Mutt will check for new mail delivered while the mailbox is open. Especially with MH mailboxes, this operation can take quite some time since it involves scanning the directory and checking each file to see if it has already been looked at. If this variable is unset, no check for new mail is performed while the mailbox is open.

Causes Mutt to timeout a network connection (for IMAP, POP or SMTP) after this many seconds if the connection is not able to be established. A negative value causes Mutt to wait indefinitely for the connection attempt to succeed.

Setting this variable will cause Mutt to always attempt to PGP encrypt outgoing messages. This is probably only useful in connection to the “send-hook” command. It can be overridden by use of the pgp menu, when encryption is not required or signing is requested as well. If $smime_is_default is set, then OpenSSL is used instead to create S/MIME messages and settings can be overridden by use of the smime menu instead. (Crypto only)

This variable controls whether or not mutt may automatically enable PGP encryption/signing for messages. See also $crypt_autoencrypt, $crypt_replyencrypt, $crypt_autosign, $crypt_replysign and $smime_is_default.

Setting this variable will cause Mutt to always attempt to cryptographically sign outgoing messages. This can be overridden by use of the pgp menu, when signing is not required or encryption is requested as well. If $smime_is_default is set, then OpenSSL is used instead to create S/MIME messages and settings can be overridden by use of the smime menu instead of the pgp menu. (Crypto only)

This variable controls whether or not mutt may automatically enable S/MIME encryption/signing for messages. See also $crypt_autoencrypt, $crypt_replyencrypt, $crypt_autosign, $crypt_replysign and $smime_is_default.

If set, then you will be prompted for confirmation of keys when using the crypt-hook command. If unset, no such confirmation prompt will be presented. This is generally considered unsafe, especially where typos are concerned.

If set, automatically PGP or OpenSSL sign replies to messages which are encrypted. This makes sense in combination with $crypt_replyencrypt, because it allows you to sign all messages which are automatically encrypted. This works around the problem noted in $crypt_replysign, that mutt is not able to find out whether an encrypted message is also signed. (Crypto only)

If set, mutt will include a time stamp in the lines surrounding PGP or S/MIME output, so spoofing such lines is more difficult. If you are using colors to mark these lines, and rely on these, you may unset this setting. (Crypto only)

This variable controls the use of the GPGME-enabled crypto backends. If it is set and Mutt was built with gpgme support, the gpgme code for S/MIME and PGP will be used instead of the classic code. Note that you need to set this option in .muttrc; it won't have any effect when used interactively.

Note that the GPGME backend does not support creating old-style inline (traditional) PGP encrypted or signed messages (see $pgp_autoinline).

This variable controls the format of the date printed by the “%d” sequence in $index_format. This is passed to the strftime(3) function to process the date, see the man page for the proper syntax.

Unless the first character in the string is a bang (“!”), the month and week day names are expanded according to the locale. If the first character in the string is a bang, the bang is discarded, and the month and week day names in the rest of the string are expanded in the C locale (that is in US English).

This variable controls how “message-hook”, “reply-hook”, “send-hook”, “send2-hook”, “save-hook”, and “fcc-hook” will be interpreted if they are specified with only a simple regexp, instead of a matching pattern. The hooks are expanded when they are declared, so a hook will be interpreted according to the value of this variable at the time the hook is declared.

The default value matches if the message is either from a user matching the regular expression given, or if it is from you (if the from address matches “alternates”) and is to or cc'ed to a user matching the given regular expression.

Controls whether or not messages are really deleted when closing or synchronizing a mailbox. If set to yes, messages marked for deleting will automatically be purged without prompting. If set to no, messages marked for deletion will be kept in the mailbox.

This variable sets the request for when notification is returned. The string consists of a comma separated list (no spaces!) of one or more of the following: never, to never request notification, failure, to request notification on transmission failure, delay, to be notified of message delays, success, to be notified of successful transmission.

Example:

set dsn_notify=”failure,delay”

Note: when using $sendmail for delivery, you should not enable this unless you are either using Sendmail 8.8.x or greater or a MTA providing a sendmail(1)-compatible interface supporting the -N option for DSN. For SMTP delivery, DSN support is auto-detected so that it depends on the server whether DSN will be used or not.

This variable controls how much of your message is returned in DSN messages. It may be set to either hdrs to return just the message header, or full to return the full message.

Example:

set dsn_return=hdrs

Note: when using $sendmail for delivery, you should not enable this unless you are either using Sendmail 8.8.x or greater or a MTA providing a sendmail(1)-compatible interface supporting the -R option for DSN. For SMTP delivery, DSN support is auto-detected so that it depends on the server whether DSN will be used or not.

This variable controls whether mutt, when $sort is set to threads, threads messages with the same Message-Id together. If it is set, it will indicate that it thinks they are duplicates of each other with an equals sign in the thread tree.

This option allows you to edit the header of your outgoing messages along with the body of your message.

Although the compose menu may have localized header labels, the labels passed to your editor will be standard RFC 2822 headers, (e.g. To:, Cc:, Subject:). Headers added in your editor must also be RFC 2822 headers, or one of the pseudo headers listed in “edit-header”. Mutt will not understand localized header labels, just as it would not when parsing an actual email.

Note that changes made to the References: and Date: headers are ignored for interoperability reasons.

When set, mutt will quoted-printable encode messages when they contain the string “From ” (note the trailing space) in the beginning of a line. This is useful to avoid the tampering certain mail delivery and transport agents tend to do with messages (in order to prevent tools from misinterpreting the line as a mbox message separator).

This variable controls the size (in number of strings remembered) of the error messages displayed by mutt. These can be shown with the <error-history> function. The history is cleared each time this variable is set.

Specifies the default location of your mailboxes. A “+” or “=” at the beginning of a pathname will be expanded to the value of this variable. Note that if you change this variable (from the default) value you need to make sure that the assignment occurs before you use “+” or “=” for any other variables since expansion takes place when handling the “mailboxes” command.

Controls whether or not the “Mail-Followup-To:” header field is generated when sending mail. When set, Mutt will generate this field when you are replying to a known mailing list, specified with the “subscribe” or “lists” commands.

This field has two purposes. First, preventing you from receiving duplicate copies of replies to messages which you send to mailing lists, and second, ensuring that you do get a reply separately for any messages sent to known lists to which you are not subscribed.

The header will contain only the list's address for subscribed lists, and both the list address and your own email address for unsubscribed lists. Without this header, a group reply to your message sent to a subscribed list will be sent to both the list and your address, resulting in two copies of the same email for you.

This is the string that will precede a message which has been forwarded in the main body of a message (when $mime_forward is unset). For a full listing of defined printf(3)-like sequences see the section on $index_format. See also $attribution_locale.

This is the string that will follow a message which has been forwarded in the main body of a message (when $mime_forward is unset). For a full listing of defined printf(3)-like sequences see the section on $index_format. See also $attribution_locale.

Controls the decoding of complex MIME messages into text/plain when forwarding a message. The message header is also RFC2047 decoded. This variable is only used, if $mime_forward is unset, otherwise $mime_forward_decode is used instead.

Controls the handling of encrypted messages when forwarding a message. When set, the outer layer of encryption is stripped off. This variable is only used if $mime_forward is set and $mime_forward_decode is unset. (PGP only)

A regular expression used by mutt to parse the GECOS field of a password entry when expanding the alias. The default value will return the string up to the first “,” encountered. If the GECOS field contains a string like “lastname, firstname” then you should set it to “.*”.

This can be useful if you see the following behavior: you address an e-mail to user ID “stevef” whose full name is “Steve Franklin”. If mutt expands “stevef” to “”Franklin” stevef@foo.bar” then you should set the $gecos_mask to a regular expression that will match the whole name so mutt will expand “Franklin” to “Franklin, Steve”.

When unset, the header fields normally added by the “my_hdr” command are not created. This variable must be unset before composing a new message or replying in order to take effect. If set, the user defined header fields are added to every new message.

This variable points to the header cache database. If pointing to a directory Mutt will contain a header cache database file per folder, if pointing to a file that file will be a single global header cache. By default it is unset so no header caching will be used.

When mutt is compiled with qdbm, tokyocabinet, or kyotocabinet as header cache backend, this option determines whether the database will be compressed. Compression results in database files roughly being one fifth of the usual diskspace, but the decompression can result in a slower opening of cached folder(s) which in general is still much faster than opening non header cached folders.

When mutt is compiled with either gdbm or bdb4 as the header cache backend, this option changes the database page size. Too large or too small values can waste space, memory, or CPU time. The default should be more or less optimal for most use cases.

When set, help lines describing the bindings for the major functions provided by each menu are displayed on the first line of the screen.

Note: The binding will not be displayed correctly if the function is bound to a sequence rather than a single keystroke. Also, the help line may not be updated if a binding is changed while Mutt is running. Since this variable is primarily aimed at new users, neither of these should present a major problem.

When set, mutt will skip the host name part of $hostname variable when adding the domain part to addresses. This variable does not affect the generation of Message-IDs, and it will not lead to the cut-off of first-level domains.

Specifies the fully-qualified hostname of the system mutt is running on containing the host's name and the DNS domain it belongs to. It is used as the domain part (after “@”) for local email addresses as well as Message-Id headers.

Its value is determined at startup as follows: the node's hostname is first determined by the uname(3) function. The domain is then looked up using the gethostname(2) and getaddrinfo(3) functions. If those calls are unable to determine the domain, the full value returned by uname is used. Optionally, Mutt can be compiled with a fixed domain name in which case a detected one is not used.

Affects the behavior of the <reply> function when replying to messages from mailing lists (as defined by the “subscribe” or “lists” commands). When set, if the “Reply-To:” field is set to the same value as the “To:” field, Mutt assumes that the “Reply-To:” field was set by the mailing list to automate responses to the list, and will ignore this field. To direct a response to the mailing list when this option is set, use the <list-reply> function; <group-reply> will reply to both the sender and the list.

This is a colon-delimited list of authentication methods mutt may attempt to use to log in to an IMAP server, in the order mutt should try them. Authentication methods are either “login” or the right side of an IMAP “AUTH=xxx” capability string, e.g. “digest-md5”, “gssapi” or “cram-md5”. This option is case-insensitive. If it's unset (the default) mutt will try all available methods, in order from most-secure to least-secure.

Example:

set imap_authenticators=”gssapi:cram-md5:login”

Note: Mutt will only fall back to other authentication methods if the previous methods are unavailable. If a method is available but authentication fails, mutt will not connect to the IMAP server.

When set, mutt will fetch the set of subscribed folders from your server on connection, and add them to the set of mailboxes it polls for new mail just as if you had issued individual “mailboxes” commands.

When set, mutt will attempt to use the IMAP IDLE extension to check for new mail in the current mailbox. Some servers (dovecot was the inspiration for this option) react badly to mutt's implementation. If your connection seems to freeze up periodically, try unsetting this.

This variable specifies the maximum amount of time in seconds that mutt will wait before polling open IMAP connections, to prevent the server from closing them before mutt has finished with them. The default is well within the RFC-specified minimum amount of time (30 minutes) before a server is allowed to do this, but in practice the RFC does get violated every now and then. Reduce this number if you find yourself getting disconnected from your IMAP server due to inactivity.

The command to run to generate an OAUTH refresh token for authorizing your connection to your IMAP server. This command will be run on every connection attempt that uses the OAUTHBEARER authentication mechanism. See “oauth” for details.

When set, mutt will not open new IMAP connections to check for new mail. Mutt will only check for new mail over existing IMAP connections. This is useful if you don't want to be prompted for user/password pairs on mutt invocation, or if opening the connection is slow.

When set, mutt will avoid implicitly marking your mail as read whenever you fetch a message from the server. This is generally a good thing, but can make closing an IMAP folder somewhat slower. This option exists to appease speed freaks.

Controls the number of IMAP commands that may be queued up before they are sent to the server. A deeper pipeline reduces the amount of time mutt must wait for the server, and can make IMAP servers feel much more responsive. But not all servers correctly handle pipelined commands, so if you have problems you might want to try setting this variable to 0.

This variable specifies the maximum amount of time in seconds that mutt will wait for a response when polling IMAP connections for new mail, before timing out and closing the connection. Set to 0 to disable timing out.

When set, mutt will display warning messages from the IMAP server as error messages. Since these messages are often harmless, or generated due to configuration problems on the server which are out of the users' hands, you may wish to suppress them at some point.

If set to “yes”, mutt will look for a mailcap entry with the “copiousoutput” flag set for every MIME attachment it doesn't have an internal viewer defined for. If such an entry is found, mutt will use the viewer defined in that entry to convert the body part to text form.

Specifies the string to prepend to each line of text quoted in a message to which you are replying. You are strongly encouraged not to change this value, as it tends to agitate the more fanatical netizens.

The value of this option is ignored if $text_flowed is set, because the quoting mechanism is strictly defined for format=flowed.

This option is a format string, please see the description of $index_format for supported printf(3)-style sequences.

This variable allows you to customize the message index display to your personal taste.

“Format strings” are similar to the strings used in the C function printf(3) to format output (see the man page for more details). For an explanation of the %? construct, see the $status_format description. The following sequences are defined in Mutt:

%a

address of the author

%A

reply-to address (if present; otherwise: address of author)

%b

filename of the original message folder (think mailbox)

%B

the list to which the letter was sent, or else the folder name (%b).

%c

number of characters (bytes) in the message

%C

current message number

%d

date and time of the message in the format specified by $date_format converted to sender's time zone

%D

date and time of the message in the format specified by $date_format converted to the local time zone

%e

current message number in thread

%E

number of messages in current thread

%f

sender (address + real name), either From: or Return-Path:

%F

author name, or recipient name if the message is from you

%H

spam attribute(s) of this message

%i

message-id of the current message

%l

number of lines in the message (does not work with maildir, mh, and possibly IMAP folders)

%L

If an address in the “To:” or “Cc:” header field matches an address defined by the users “subscribe” command, this displays ”To <list-name>”, otherwise the same as %F.

%m

total number of message in the mailbox

%M

number of hidden messages if the thread is collapsed.

%N

message score

%n

author's real name (or address if missing)

%O

original save folder where mutt would formerly have stashed the message: list name or recipient name if not sent to a list

%P

progress indicator for the built-in pager (how much of the file has been displayed)

%r

comma separated list of “To:” recipients

%R

comma separated list of “Cc:” recipients

%s

subject of the message

%S

single character status of the message (“N”/“O”/“D”/“d”/“!”/“r”/“*”)

%t

“To:” field (recipients)

%T

the appropriate character from the $to_chars string

%u

user (login) name of the author

%v

first name of the author, or the recipient if the message is from you

%X

number of attachments (please see the “attachments” section for possible speed effects)

%y

“X-Label:” field, if present

%Y

“X-Label:” field, if present, and (1) not at part of a thread tree, (2) at the top of a thread, or (3) “X-Label:” is different from preceding message's “X-Label:”.

%Z

a three character set of message status flags. the first character is new/read/replied flags (“n”/“o”/“r”/“O”/“N”). the second is deleted or encryption flags (“D”/“d”/“S”/“P”/“s”/“K”). the third is either tagged/flagged (“*”/“!”), or one of the characters listed in $to_chars.

%@name@

insert and evaluate format-string from the matching “index-format-hook” command

%{fmt}

the date and time of the message is converted to sender's time zone, and “fmt” is expanded by the library function strftime(3); a leading bang disables locales

%[fmt]

the date and time of the message is converted to the local time zone, and “fmt” is expanded by the library function strftime(3); a leading bang disables locales

%(fmt)

the local date and time when the message was received. “fmt” is expanded by the library function strftime(3); a leading bang disables locales

%<fmt>

the current local time. “fmt” is expanded by the library function strftime(3); a leading bang disables locales.

%>X

right justify the rest of the string and pad with character “X”

%|X

pad to the end of the line with character “X”

%*X

soft-fill with character “X” as pad

“Soft-fill” deserves some explanation: Normal right-justification will print everything to the left of the “%>”, displaying padding and whatever lies to the right only if there's room. By contrast, soft-fill gives priority to the right-hand side, guaranteeing space to display it and showing padding only if there's still room. If necessary, soft-fill will eat text leftwards to make room for rightward text.

Note that these expandos are supported in “save-hook”, “fcc-hook”, “fcc-save-hook”, and “index-format-hook”.

They are also supported in the configuration variables $attribution, $forward_attribution_intro, $forward_attribution_trailer, $forward_format, $indent_string, $message_format, $pager_format, and $post_indent_string.

When set, Mutt will only notify you about new mail that has been received since the last time you opened the mailbox. When unset, Mutt will notify you if any new mail exists in the mailbox, regardless of whether you have visited it recently.

When $mark_old is set, Mutt does not consider the mailbox to contain new mail if only old messages exist.

When set, mutt will periodically calculate message statistics of a mailbox while polling for new mail. It will check for unread, flagged, and total message counts. Because this operation is more performance intensive, it defaults to unset, and has a separate option, $mail_check_stats_interval, to control how often to update these counts.

Message statistics can also be explicitly calculated by invoking the <check-stats> function.

If set, mutt will restrict possible characters in mailcap % expandos to a well-defined set of safe characters. This is the safe setting, but we are not sure it doesn't break some more advanced MIME stuff.

DON'T CHANGE THIS SETTING UNLESS YOU ARE REALLY SURE WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

Check for Maildir unaware programs other than mutt having modified maildir files when the header cache is in use. This incurs one stat(2) per message every time the folder is opened (which can be very slow for NFS folders).

If set, messages marked as deleted will be saved with the maildir trashed flag instead of unlinked. Note: this only applies to maildir-style mailboxes. Setting it will have no effect on other mailbox types.

If set, mutt will poll both the new and cur directories of a maildir folder for new messages. This might be useful if other programs interacting with the folder (e.g. dovecot) are moving new messages to the cur directory. Note that setting this option may slow down polling for new messages in large folders, since mutt has to scan all cur messages.

Controls whether or not mutt marks newunread messages as old if you exit a mailbox without reading them. With this option set, the next time you start mutt, the messages will show up with an “O” next to them in the index menu, indicating that they are old.

When set, menus will be scrolled up or down one line when you attempt to move across a screen boundary. If unset, the screen is cleared and the next or previous page of the menu is displayed (useful for slow links to avoid many redraws).

If set, mutt will clean out obsolete entries from the message cache when the mailbox is synchronized. You probably only want to set it every once in a while, since it can be a little slow (especially for large folders).

If set, forces Mutt to interpret keystrokes with the high bit (bit 8) set as if the user had pressed the Esc key and whatever key remains after having the high bit removed. For example, if the key pressed has an ASCII value of 0xf8, then this is treated as if the user had pressed Esc then “x”. This is because the result of removing the high bit from 0xf8 is 0x78, which is the ASCII character “x”.

When unset, mutt will mimic mh's behavior and rename deleted messages to ,<old file name> in mh folders instead of really deleting them. This leaves the message on disk but makes programs reading the folder ignore it. If the variable is set, the message files will simply be deleted.

When set, the message you are forwarding will be attached as a separate message/rfc822 MIME part instead of included in the main body of the message. This is useful for forwarding MIME messages so the receiver can properly view the message as it was delivered to you. If you like to switch between MIME and not MIME from mail to mail, set this variable to “ask-no” or “ask-yes”.

When forwarding multiple attachments of a MIME message from the attachment menu, attachments which cannot be decoded in a reasonable manner will be attached to the newly composed message if this option is set.

This specifies a command to run, to determine the mime type of a new attachment when composing a message. Unless $mime_type_query_first is set, this will only be run if the attachment's extension is not found in the mime.types file.

The string may contain a “%s”, which will be substituted with the attachment filename. Mutt will add quotes around the string substituted for “%s” automatically according to shell quoting rules, so you should avoid adding your own. If no “%s” is found in the string, Mutt will append the attachment filename to the end of the string.

The command should output a single line containing the attachment's mime type.

This variable contains the path to the Mixmaster binary on your system. It is used with various sets of parameters to gather the list of known remailers, and to finally send a message through the mixmaster chain.

This variable specifies which pager you would like to use to view messages. The value “builtin” means to use the built-in pager, otherwise this variable should specify the pathname of the external pager you would like to use.

Using an external pager may have some disadvantages: Additional keystrokes are necessary because you can't call mutt functions directly from the pager, and screen resizes cause lines longer than the screen width to be badly formatted in the help menu.

This variable controls the number of lines of context that are given when displaying the next or previous page in the internal pager. By default, Mutt will display the line after the last one on the screen at the top of the next page (0 lines of context).

This variable also specifies the amount of context given for search results. If positive, this many lines will be given before a match, if 0, the match will be top-aligned.

This variable controls the format of the one-line message “status” displayed before each message in either the internal or an external pager. The valid sequences are listed in the $index_format section.

Determines the number of lines of a mini-index which is shown when in the pager. The current message, unless near the top or bottom of the folder, will be roughly one third of the way down this mini-index, giving the reader the context of a few messages before and after the message. This is useful, for example, to determine how many messages remain to be read in the current thread. One of the lines is reserved for the status bar from the index, so a setting of 6 will only show 5 lines of the actual index. A value of 0 results in no index being shown. If the number of messages in the current folder is less than $pager_index_lines, then the index will only use as many lines as it needs.

If set, mutt will automatically attempt to decrypt traditional PGP messages whenever the user performs an operation which ordinarily would result in the contents of the message being operated on. For example, if the user displays a pgp-traditional message which has not been manually checked with the <check-traditional-pgp> function, mutt will automatically check the message for traditional pgp.

This option controls whether Mutt generates old-style inline (traditional) PGP encrypted or signed messages under certain circumstances. This can be overridden by use of the pgp menu, when inline is not required. The GPGME backend does not support this option.

Note that Mutt might automatically use PGP/MIME for messages which consist of more than a single MIME part. Mutt can be configured to ask before sending PGP/MIME messages when inline (traditional) would not work.

Also see the $pgp_mime_auto variable.

Also note that using the old-style PGP message format is strongly deprecated. (PGP only)

If set, mutt will check the status file descriptor output of $pgp_decrypt_command and $pgp_decode_command for GnuPG status codes indicating successful decryption. This will check for the presence of DECRYPTION_OKAY, absence of DECRYPTION_FAILED, and that all PLAINTEXT occurs between the BEGIN_DECRYPTION and END_DECRYPTION status codes.

This format strings specifies a command which is used to decode application/pgp attachments.

The PGP command formats have their own set of printf(3)-like sequences:

%p

Expands to PGPPASSFD=0 when a pass phrase is needed, to an empty string otherwise. Note: This may be used with a %? construct.

%f

Expands to the name of a file containing a message.

%s

Expands to the name of a file containing the signature part of a multipart/signed attachment when verifying it.

%a

The value of $pgp_sign_as if set, otherwise the value of $pgp_default_key.

%r

One or more key IDs (or fingerprints if available).

For examples on how to configure these formats for the various versions of PGP which are floating around, see the pgp and gpg sample configuration files in the samples/ subdirectory which has been installed on your system alongside the documentation. (PGP only)

If you assign text to this variable, then an encrypted PGP message is only considered successfully decrypted if the output from $pgp_decrypt_command contains the text. This is used to protect against a spoofed encrypted message, with multipart/encrypted headers but containing a block that is not actually encrypted. (e.g. simply signed and ascii armored text).

Note that if $pgp_check_gpg_decrypt_status_fd is set, this variable is ignored. (PGP only)

This command is invoked whenever Mutt needs to fetch the public key associated with an email address. Of the sequences supported by $pgp_decode_command, %r is the only printf(3)-like sequence used with this format. Note that in this case, %r expands to the email address, not the public key ID (the key ID is unknown, which is why Mutt is invoking this command). (PGP only)

If you assign a text to this variable, then a PGP signature is only considered verified if the output from $pgp_verify_command contains the text. Use this variable if the exit code from the command is 0 even for bad signatures. (PGP only)

Setting this variable will cause Mutt to ignore OpenPGP subkeys. Instead, the principal key will inherit the subkeys' capabilities. Unset this if you want to play interesting key selection games. (PGP only)

If set, use 64 bit PGP key IDs, if unset use the normal 32 bit key IDs. NOTE: Internally, Mutt has transitioned to using fingerprints (or long key IDs as a fallback). This option now only controls the display of key IDs in the key selection menu and a few other places. (PGP only)

Setting this variable will cause Mutt to always attempt to create an inline (traditional) message when replying to a message which is PGP encrypted/signed inline. This can be overridden by use of the pgp menu, when inline is not required. This option does not automatically detect if the (replied-to) message is inline; instead it relies on Mutt internals for previously checked/flagged messages.

Note that Mutt might automatically use PGP/MIME for messages which consist of more than a single MIME part. Mutt can be configured to ask before sending PGP/MIME messages when inline (traditional) would not work.

Also see the $pgp_mime_auto variable.

Also note that using the old-style PGP message format is strongly deprecated. (PGP only)

If set, signed and encrypted messages will consist of nested multipart/signed and multipart/encrypted body parts.

This is useful for applications like encrypted and signed mailing lists, where the outer layer (multipart/encrypted) can be easily removed, while the inner multipart/signed part is retained. (PGP only)

If you have a different key pair to use for signing, you should set this to the signing key. Most people will only need to set $pgp_default_key. It is recommended that you use the keyid form to specify your key (e.g. 0x00112233). (PGP only)

If set, Mutt will automatically encode PGP/MIME signed messages as quoted-printable. Please note that unsetting this variable may lead to problems with non-verifyable PGP signatures, so only change this if you know what you are doing. (PGP only)

Used in connection with the <pipe-message> function following <tag-prefix>. If this variable is unset, when piping a list of tagged messages Mutt will concatenate the messages and will pipe them all concatenated. When set, Mutt will pipe the messages one by one. In both cases the messages are piped in the current sorted order, and the $pipe_sep separator is added after each message.

If set, Mutt will try all available authentication methods. When unset, Mutt will only fall back to other authentication methods if the previous methods are unavailable. If a method is available but authentication fails, Mutt will not connect to the POP server.

This is a colon-delimited list of authentication methods mutt may attempt to use to log in to an POP server, in the order mutt should try them. Authentication methods are either “user”, “apop” or any SASL mechanism, e.g. “digest-md5”, “gssapi” or “cram-md5”. This option is case-insensitive. If this option is unset (the default) mutt will try all available methods, in order from most-secure to least-secure.

The command to run to generate an OAUTH refresh token for authorizing your connection to your POP server. This command will be run on every connection attempt that uses the OAUTHBEARER authentication mechanism. See “oauth” for details.

Similar to the $attribution variable, Mutt will append this string after the inclusion of a message which is being replied to. For a full listing of defined printf(3)-like sequences see the section on $index_format.

When set, postponed messages that are marked for encryption will be self-encrypted. Mutt will first try to encrypt using the value specified in $pgp_default_key or $smime_default_key. If those are not set, it will try the deprecated $postpone_encrypt_as. (Crypto only)

If set, a shell command to be executed if mutt fails to establish a connection to the server. This is useful for setting up secure connections, e.g. with ssh(1). If the command returns a nonzero status, mutt gives up opening the server. Example:

Used in connection with the <print-message> command. If this option is set, the message is decoded before it is passed to the external command specified by $print_command. If this option is unset, no processing will be applied to the message when printing it. The latter setting may be useful if you are using some advanced printer filter which is able to properly format e-mail messages for printing.

Used in connection with the <print-message> command. If this option is set, the command specified by $print_command is executed once for each message which is to be printed. If this option is unset, the command specified by $print_command is executed only once, and all the messages are concatenated, with a form feed as the message separator.

Those who use the enscript(1) program's mail-printing mode will most likely want to set this option.

If you use an external $pager, setting this variable will cause Mutt to prompt you for a command when the pager exits rather than returning to the index menu. If unset, Mutt will return to the index menu when the external pager exits.

This specifies the command Mutt will use to make external address queries. The string may contain a “%s”, which will be substituted with the query string the user types. Mutt will add quotes around the string substituted for “%s” automatically according to shell quoting rules, so you should avoid adding your own. If no “%s” is found in the string, Mutt will append the user's query to the end of the string. See “query” for more information.

This variable controls whether “quit” and “exit” actually quit from mutt. If this option is set, they do quit, if it is unset, they have no effect, and if it is set to ask-yes or ask-no, you are prompted for confirmation when you try to quit.

A regular expression used in the internal pager to determine quoted sections of text in the body of a message. Quoted text may be filtered out using the <toggle-quoted> command, or colored according to the “color quoted” family of directives.

Higher levels of quoting may be colored differently (“color quoted1”, “color quoted2”, etc.). The quoting level is determined by removing the last character from the matched text and recursively reapplying the regular expression until it fails to produce a match.

If set to a value greater than 0, Mutt will display which message it is currently on when reading a mailbox or when performing search actions such as search and limit. The message is printed after this many messages have been read or searched (e.g., if set to 25, Mutt will print a message when it is at message 25, and then again when it gets to message 50). This variable is meant to indicate progress when reading or searching large mailboxes which may take some time. When set to 0, only a single message will appear before the reading the mailbox.

Also see the $write_inc, $net_inc and $time_inc variables and the “tuning” section of the manual for performance considerations.

This specifies the file into which your outgoing messages should be appended. (This is meant as the primary method for saving a copy of your messages, but another way to do this is using the “my_hdr” command to create a “Bcc:” field with your email address in it.)

The value of $record is overridden by the $force_name and $save_name variables, and the “fcc-hook” command. Also see $copy.

This option controls how quotes from format=flowed messages are displayed in the pager and when replying (with $text_flowed unset). When set, this option adds spaces after each level of quote marks, turning ”>>>foo” into ”> > > foo”.

Note: If $reflow_text is unset, this option has no effect. Also, this option does not affect replies when $text_flowed is set.

When set, Mutt will reformat paragraphs in text/plain parts marked format=flowed. If unset, Mutt will display paragraphs unaltered from how they appear in the message body. See RFC3676 for details on the format=flowed format.

This variable controls the maximum paragraph width when reformatting text/plain parts when $reflow_text is set. When the value is 0, paragraphs will be wrapped at the terminal's right margin. A positive value sets the paragraph width relative to the left margin. A negative value set the paragraph width relative to the right margin.

If set, when replying to a message, Mutt will use the address listed in the Reply-to: header as the recipient of the reply. If unset, it will use the address in the From: header field instead. This option is useful for reading a mailing list that sets the Reply-To: header field to the list address and you want to send a private message to the author of a message.

If set, draft files (specified by -H on the command line) are processed similarly to when resuming a postponed message. Recipients are not prompted for; send-hooks are not evaluated; no alias expansion takes place; user-defined headers and signatures are not added to the message.

This variable controls whether or not Mutt will display the “personal” name from your aliases in the index menu if it finds an alias that matches the message's sender. For example, if you have the following alias:

alias juser abd30425@somewhere.net (Joe User)

and then you receive mail which contains the following header:

From: abd30425@somewhere.net

It would be displayed in the index menu as “Joe User” instead of “abd30425@somewhere.net.” This is useful when the person's e-mail address is not human friendly.

It may sometimes arrive that you receive mail to a certain machine, move the messages to another machine, and reply to some the messages from there. If this variable is set, the default From: line of the reply messages is built using the address where you received the messages you are replying to if that address matches your “alternates”. If the variable is unset, or the address that would be used doesn't match your “alternates”, the From: line will use your address on the current machine.

This variable fine-tunes the behavior of the $reverse_name feature. When it is set, mutt will use the address from incoming messages as-is, possibly including eventual real names. When it is unset, mutt will override any such real names with the setting of the $realname variable.

This variable controls how copies of outgoing messages are saved. When set, a check is made to see if a mailbox specified by the recipient address exists (this is done by searching for a mailbox in the $folder directory with the username part of the recipient address). If the mailbox exists, the outgoing message will be saved to that mailbox, otherwise the message is saved to the $record mailbox.

Messages which have been assigned a score equal to or lower than the value of this variable are automatically marked for deletion by mutt. Since mutt scores are always greater than or equal to zero, the default setting of this variable will never mark a message for deletion.

Messages which have been assigned a score equal to or lower than the value of this variable are automatically marked as read by mutt. Since mutt scores are always greater than or equal to zero, the default setting of this variable will never mark a message read.

A colon-delimited list of character sets for outgoing messages. Mutt will use the first character set into which the text can be converted exactly. If your $charset is not “iso-8859-1” and recipients may not understand “UTF-8”, it is advisable to include in the list an appropriate widely used standard character set (such as “iso-8859-2”, “koi8-r” or “iso-2022-jp”) either instead of or after “iso-8859-1”.

In case the text cannot be converted into one of these exactly, mutt uses $charset as a fallback.

Specifies the program and arguments used to deliver mail sent by Mutt. Mutt expects that the specified program interprets additional arguments as recipient addresses. Mutt appends all recipients after adding a -- delimiter (if not already present). Additional flags, such as for $use_8bitmime, $use_envelope_from, $dsn_notify, or $dsn_return will be added before the delimiter.

When set, the <sidebar-next-new> command will not stop and the end of the list of mailboxes, but wrap around to the beginning. The <sidebar-prev-new> command is similarly affected, wrapping around to the end of the list.

If set, a line containing “-- ” (note the trailing space) will be inserted before your $signature. It is strongly recommended that you not unset this variable unless your signature contains just your name. The reason for this is because many software packages use “-- \n” to detect your signature. For example, Mutt has the ability to highlight the signature in a different color in the built-in pager.

If set, the signature will be included before any quoted or forwarded text. It is strongly recommended that you do not set this variable unless you really know what you are doing, and are prepared to take some heat from netiquette guardians.

Specifies the filename of your signature, which is appended to all outgoing messages. If the filename ends with a pipe (“|”), it is assumed that filename is a shell command and input should be read from its standard output.

Specifies how Mutt should expand a simple search into a real search pattern. A simple search is one that does not contain any of the “~” pattern operators. See “patterns” for more information on search patterns.

For example, if you simply type “joe” at a search or limit prompt, Mutt will automatically expand it to the value specified by this variable by replacing “%s” with the supplied string. For the default value, “joe” would be expanded to: “~f joe | ~s joe”.

Specifies time, in seconds, to pause while displaying certain informational messages, while moving from folder to folder and after expunging messages from the current folder. The default is to pause one second, so a value of zero for this option suppresses the pause.

Controls the display of lines longer than the screen width in the internal pager. If set, long lines are wrapped at a word boundary. If unset, lines are simply wrapped at the screen edge. Also see the $markers variable.

The pager uses this variable to catch some common false positives of $quote_regexp, most notably smileys and not consider a line quoted text if it also matches $smileys. This mostly happens at the beginning of a line.

Since for S/MIME there is no pubring/secring as with PGP, mutt has to handle storage and retrieval of keys by itself. This is very basic right now, and keys and certificates are stored in two different directories, both named as the hash-value retrieved from OpenSSL. There is an index file which contains mailbox-address keyid pairs, and which can be manually edited. This option points to the location of the certificates. (S/MIME only)

If set (default) this tells mutt to use the default key for decryption. Otherwise, if managing multiple certificate-key-pairs, mutt will try to use the mailbox-address to determine the key to use. It will ask you to supply a key, if it can't find one. (S/MIME only)

The default behavior of mutt is to use PGP on all auto-sign/encryption operations. To override and to use OpenSSL instead this must be set. However, this has no effect while replying, since mutt will automatically select the same application that was used to sign/encrypt the original message. (Note that this variable can be overridden by unsetting $crypt_autosmime.) (S/MIME only)

Since for S/MIME there is no pubring/secring as with PGP, mutt has to handle storage and retrieval of keys/certs by itself. This is very basic right now, and stores keys and certificates in two different directories, both named as the hash-value retrieved from OpenSSL. There is an index file which contains mailbox-address keyid pair, and which can be manually edited. This option points to the location of the private keys. (S/MIME only)

This command is used to created S/MIME signatures of type multipart/signed, which can be read by all mail clients.

This is a format string, see the $smime_decrypt_command command for possible printf(3)-like sequences. NOTE: %c and %k will default to $smime_sign_as if set, otherwise $smime_default_key. (S/MIME only)

This is a colon-delimited list of authentication methods mutt may attempt to use to log in to an SMTP server, in the order mutt should try them. Authentication methods are any SASL mechanism, e.g. “digest-md5”, “gssapi” or “cram-md5”. This option is case-insensitive. If it is “unset” (the default) mutt will try all available methods, in order from most-secure to least-secure.

The command to run to generate an OAUTH refresh token for authorizing your connection to your SMTP server. This command will be run on every connection attempt that uses the OAUTHBEARER authentication mechanism. See “oauth” for details.

This provides a secondary sort for messages in the “index” menu, used when the $sort value is equal for two messages.

When sorting by threads, this variable controls how threads are sorted in relation to other threads, and how the branches of the thread trees are sorted. This can be set to any value that $sort can, except “threads” (in that case, mutt will just use “date-sent”). You can also specify the “last-” prefix in addition to the “reverse-” prefix, but “last-” must come after “reverse-”. The “last-” prefix causes messages to be sorted against its siblings by which has the last descendant, using the rest of $sort_aux as an ordering. For instance,

set sort_aux=last-date-received

would mean that if a new message is received in a thread, that thread becomes the last one displayed (or the first, if you have “set sort=reverse-threads”.)

Note: For reversed-threads $sort order, $sort_aux is reversed again (which is not the right thing to do, but kept to not break any existing configuration setting).

This variable is only useful when sorting by threads with $strict_threads unset. In that case, it changes the heuristic mutt uses to thread messages by subject. With $sort_re set, mutt will only attach a message as the child of another message by subject if the subject of the child message starts with a substring matching the setting of $reply_regexp. With $sort_re unset, mutt will attach the message whether or not this is the case, as long as the non-$reply_regexp parts of both messages are identical.

This variable controls what happens when multiple spam headers are matched: if unset, each successive header will overwrite any previous matches value for the spam label. If set, each successive match will append to the previous, using this variable's value as a separator.

If your spool mailbox is in a non-default place where Mutt cannot find it, you can specify its location with this variable. Mutt will initially set this variable to the value of the environment variable $MAIL or $MAILDIR if either is defined.

If this variable is set, Mutt will require that all connections to remote servers be encrypted. Furthermore it will attempt to negotiate TLS even if the server does not advertise the capability, since it would otherwise have to abort the connection anyway. This option supersedes $ssl_starttls.

This variable specifies whether to attempt to use SSLv2 in the SSL authentication process. Note that SSLv2 and SSLv3 are now considered fundamentally insecure and are no longer recommended. (OpenSSL only)

If set (the default), mutt will not automatically accept a server certificate that is either not yet valid or already expired. You should only unset this for particular known hosts, using the <account-hook> function.

If set (the default), mutt will not automatically accept a server certificate whose host name does not match the host used in your folder URL. You should only unset this for particular known hosts, using the <account-hook> function.

This option should not be changed from the default unless you understand what you are doing.

Setting this variable to yes will permit verifying partial certification chains, i. e. a certificate chain where not the root, but an intermediate certificate CA, or the host certificate, are marked trusted (in $certificate_file), without marking the root signing CA as trusted.

Contains a colon-seperated list of ciphers to use when using SSL. For OpenSSL, see ciphers(1) for the syntax of the string.

For GnuTLS, this option will be used in place of ”NORMAL” at the start of the priority string. See gnutls_priority_init(3) for the syntax and more details. (Note: GnuTLS version 2.1.7 or higher is required.)

Controls the characters used by the “%r” indicator in $status_format. The first character is used when the mailbox is unchanged. The second is used when the mailbox has been changed, and it needs to be resynchronized. The third is used if the mailbox is in read-only mode, or if the mailbox will not be written when exiting that mailbox (You can toggle whether to write changes to a mailbox with the <toggle-write> operation, bound by default to “%”). The fourth is used to indicate that the current folder has been opened in attach- message mode (Certain operations like composing a new mail, replying, forwarding, etc. are not permitted in this mode).

Controls the format of the status line displayed in the “index” menu. This string is similar to $index_format, but has its own set of printf(3)-like sequences:

%b

number of mailboxes with new mail *

%d

number of deleted messages *

%f

the full pathname of the current mailbox

%F

number of flagged messages *

%h

local hostname

%l

size (in bytes) of the current mailbox *

%L

size (in bytes) of the messages shown (i.e., which match the current limit) *

%m

the number of messages in the mailbox *

%M

the number of messages shown (i.e., which match the current limit) *

%n

number of new messages in the mailbox *

%o

number of old unread messages *

%p

number of postponed messages *

%P

percentage of the way through the index

%r

modified/read-only/won't-write/attach-message indicator, according to $status_chars

%R

number of read messages *

%s

current sorting mode ($sort)

%S

current aux sorting method ($sort_aux)

%t

number of tagged messages *

%u

number of unread messages *

%v

Mutt version string

%V

currently active limit pattern, if any *

%>X

right justify the rest of the string and pad with “X”

%|X

pad to the end of the line with “X”

%*X

soft-fill with character “X” as pad

For an explanation of “soft-fill”, see the $index_format documentation.

* = can be optionally printed if nonzero

Some of the above sequences can be used to optionally print a string if their value is nonzero. For example, you may only want to see the number of flagged messages if such messages exist, since zero is not particularly meaningful. To optionally print a string based upon one of the above sequences, the following construct is used:

%?<sequence_char>?<optional_string>?

where sequence_char is a character from the table above, and optional_string is the string you would like printed if sequence_char is nonzero. optional_stringmay contain other sequences as well as normal text, but you may not nest optional strings.

Here is an example illustrating how to optionally print the number of new messages in a mailbox:

%?n?%n new messages.?

You can also switch between two strings using the following construct:

%?<sequence_char>?<if_string>&<else_string>?

If the value of sequence_char is non-zero, if_string will be expanded, otherwise else_string will be expanded.

You can force the result of any printf(3)-like sequence to be lowercase by prefixing the sequence character with an underscore (“_”) sign. For example, if you want to display the local hostname in lowercase, you would use: “%_h”.

If you prefix the sequence character with a colon (“:”) character, mutt will replace any dots in the expansion by underscores. This might be helpful with IMAP folders that don't like dots in folder names.

If set, threading will only make use of the “In-Reply-To” and “References:” fields when you $sort by message threads. By default, messages with the same subject are grouped together in “pseudo threads.”. This may not always be desirable, such as in a personal mailbox where you might have several unrelated messages with the subjects like “hi” which will get grouped together. See also $sort_re for a less drastic way of controlling this behavior.

When set, mutt will generate “format=flowed” bodies with a content type of “text/plain; format=flowed”. This format is easier to handle for some mailing software, and generally just looks like ordinary text. To actually make use of this format's features, you'll need support in your editor.

Affects the ~b and ~h search operations described in section “patterns”. If set, the headers and body/attachments of messages to be searched are decoded before searching. If unset, messages are searched as they appear in the folder.

Users searching attachments or for non-ASCII characters should set this value because decoding also includes MIME parsing/decoding and possible character set conversions. Otherwise mutt will attempt to match against the raw message received (for example quoted-printable encoded or with encoded headers) which may lead to incorrect search results.

Along with $read_inc, $write_inc, and $net_inc, this variable controls the frequency with which progress updates are displayed. It suppresses updates less than $time_inc milliseconds apart. This can improve throughput on systems with slow terminals, or when running mutt on a remote system.

Also see the “tuning” section of the manual for performance considerations.

When Mutt is waiting for user input either idling in menus or in an interactive prompt, Mutt would block until input is present. Depending on the context, this would prevent certain operations from working, like checking for new mail or keeping an IMAP connection alive.

This variable controls how many seconds Mutt will at most wait until it aborts waiting for input, performs these operations and continues to wait for input.

This variable allows you to specify where Mutt will place its temporary files needed for displaying and composing messages. If this variable is not set, the environment variable $TMPDIR is used. If $TMPDIR is not set then “/tmp” is used.

Controls the character used to indicate mail addressed to you. The first character is the one used when the mail is not addressed to your address. The second is used when you are the only recipient of the message. The third is when your address appears in the “To:” header field, but you are not the only recipient of the message. The fourth character is used when your address is specified in the “Cc:” header field, but you are not the only recipient. The fifth character is used to indicate mail that was sent by you. The sixth character is used to indicate when a mail was sent to a mailing-list you subscribe to.

When set, Mutt will automatically uncollapse any collapsed thread that receives a new message. When unset, collapsed threads will remain collapsed. the presence of the new message will still affect index sorting, though.

When set, mutt will set the envelope sender of the message. If $envelope_from_address is set, it will be used as the sender address. If unset, mutt will attempt to derive the sender from the “From:” header.

Note that this information is passed to sendmail command using the -f command line switch. Therefore setting this option is not useful if the $sendmail variable already contains -f or if the executable pointed to by $sendmail doesn't support the -f switch.

Controls whether Mutt will ask you to press a key after an external command has been invoked by these functions: <shell-escape>, <pipe-message>, <pipe-entry>, <print-message>, and <print-entry> commands.

It is also used when viewing attachments with “auto_view”, provided that the corresponding mailcap entry has a needsterminal flag, and the external program is interactive.

When set, Mutt will always ask for a key. When unset, Mutt will wait for a key only if the external command returned a non-zero status.

When set to a positive value, mutt will wrap text at $wrap characters. When set to a negative value, mutt will wrap text so that there are $wrap characters of empty space on the right side of the terminal. Setting it to zero makes mutt wrap at the terminal width.

Controls whether mutt writes out the “Bcc:” header when preparing messages to be sent. Exim users may wish to unset this. If mutt is set to deliver directly via SMTP (see $smtp_url), this option does nothing: mutt will never write out the “Bcc:” header in this case.